SITUATION
In July 1996, an alarming trend was emerging:  people – most of them children – were being killed by air bags. Pressure to overturn the mandate for driver and passenger side air bags – proven lifesavers for properly restrained adults – was mounting. As one million new passenger air bag equipped vehicles entered the fleet every month, a coalition of automakers, insurance companies and occupant restraint manufacturers hired GMMB to mount a national public education campaign. The campaign's goal was to save lives by informing the public of both the risks and the benefits of air bags and to increase seat belt and child restraint use, lack of which was a key factor in air bag deaths.

In the first four months of GMMB’s effort, awareness of the risks that air bags pose to children jumped from 56 percent to nearly 90 percent. Currently, air bag deaths to children are down by 94 percent despite a fivefold increase in the number of air-bag-equipped vehicles on the road today. More than 80 percent of Americans who regularly transport children report that they are taking the necessary steps to properly restrain them – buckling them up properly in the back seat – up from an initial 43 percent when the campaign began. 

APPROACH
GMMB based all efforts of this campaign on research. We tested public opinion and perceptions, creative approaches, messages and techniques to guide our strategy. We developed a campaign slogan – Air Bag Safety: Buckle Everyone, Children in Back.  We employed a range of techniques to get the message out including advertising and public relations, coalition building, grassroots organizing, and distributing materials through corporate and organizational partners recruited to the Campaign.  In addition to parents and children, we targeted opinion leaders – the people who would be deciding whether to expand seat belt and child restraint enforcement and toughen laws on a state-by-state basis.

GMMB has developed partnerships on behalf of the Campaign with over 150 corporations and national organizations including: Century Products, Evenflo, Jiffy Lube, Ross Products Division of Abbott Laboratories, Blockbuster, Kmart, the American Academy of Family Physicians, the National Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the National WIC Association, Aspira, the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators and a number of NFL, NBA and NHL teams, all of which have distributed the important safety message to their members, employees and customers.

The centerpiece – and perhaps the most successful and gratifying initiative – of the campaign is the Operation ABC Mobilization: America Buckles Up Children – a 50-state seat belt and child passenger safety enforcement drive.  The Mobilization, now called the Click It or Ticket Mobilization, is sponsored by the Air Bag & Seat Belt Safety Campaign and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in partnership with the National Transportation Safety Board, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the National Sheriffs Association, the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives and more than 1,000 businesses and community organizations.

Click It or Ticket replicates a highly effective seat belt enforcement model used in Canada and in several U.S. states called the Special Traffic Enforcement Program (STEP). The STEP model combines periodic waves of stepped up enforcement of seat belt and child passenger safety laws with aggressive publicity highlighting the enforcement. The program aims to deliver the message that law enforcement will be ticketing seat belt and child restraint violators.

GMMB organized the first wave in May 1997, with 1,000 law enforcement agencies from all 50 states participating in the Mobilization. Now, after 14 waves, the number of participating agencies has climbed to nearly 13,000, representing tens of thousands of law enforcement agencies nationwide.

RESULTS
Overall, after 14 successful Mobilizations, GMMB has secured more than 13,000 TV stories, including nearly 250 national television stories on such programs as NBC Nightly News, CBS Evening News, ABC World News Tonight, Today, Good Morning America, CBS This Morning, and CNN; more than 112,000 national and local radio stories; and more than 18,000 newspaper and magazine stories for the Campaign, including multiple stories in each of the top ten newspapers and hundreds of editorials, including favorable editorials in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post and USA Today.

More importantly, however, in the eight years since the Mobilizations began:

• Child fatalities from traffic crashes have dropped by 20 percent, exceeding the President’s goal of decreasing child fatalities by 15 percent by the year 2000.

• Restraint use among toddlers has jumped dramatically from 60 to 94 percent and among infants, ages 0-1 from 85 to 99 percent. Restraint use for children ages 4 to 7 is 83 percent.

• Adult seat belt use increased from 62 percent to 80 percent – the highest use rate ever – with 50 million more Americans buckling up.

The U.S. Department of Transportation credits the Air Bag & Seat Belt Safety Campaign for significantly contributing to the record increases in national seat belt use and reductions in child fatalities.

AWARDS

• In 1998, GMMB received a Silver Anvil award for work on the Air Bag & Seat Belt Safety Campaign.
  
• In 1999, GMMB received a Telly Award for work on the Air Bag & Seat Belt Safety Campaign.